Stars Dish On Justice League Movie's Deleted Scenes

Scouring the cutting room floor

Justice League had a troubled production--that's no secret. It's inevitable that some material gets left on the cutting room floor in any production, but for a movie that went through re-shoots, a director change, and who knows what else, that's bound to be extra true.

During interviews with GameSpot, several Justice League stars dished on some of the movie's biggest deleted scenes.

Back to Atlantis

In Justice League, Aquaman actually spends most of his time on land. But in earlier versions of the movie, he had more to do under the sea.

That's where Willem Dafoe's character, Nuidis Vulko, would have come in--if he hadn't been cut from Justice League entirely.

"There's a place where [Aquaman] goes down to, and it got cut out of the movie," Momoa said. "He knows spots where he can go and he can see these statues, the remnants of [Atlantis]. There's Vulko--obviously we'll have way more scenes with Vulko, Willem Dafoe--in [the 2018 standalone] Aquaman. There just wasn't enough time in this movie."

Momoa went on to describe Dafoe's character in greater detail.

"Vulko's his connection to Atlantis," he said. "I think what Zack [Snyder] and I did, we were kind of trying to establish that he was taken down there as a boy, and he was an outcast, he was a half-breed, and he was built up as a young boy, because he was fed all these ideas by Vulko--that he was the rightful king. And he gets down there, and he's a half breed, he's impure, and I'm just made to feel like I'm this disease. So after that, I was like, 'f*** you, f*** you, I'm on my own.'"

Please enter your date of birth to view this video

He explained some of Aquaman's backstory, too--what the rightful King of Atlantis has been up to all these years.

"He hates Atlanteans, he cannot stand being on land. He just--he's stuck in the tide. That's what Zack wanted," Momoa continued. "He was a blue collar worker. The guy worked in very lonely places, on oil rigs, he'd weld, and he could just be in peace, and he could exist on there and no one would know his secret. But there's things where ships went down and he couldn't save enough people, and he lost friends. The humanity side of him can't deal with this power that he doesn't know how to control yet."

Mama's Boy

For his part, Ray Fisher's Cyborg gets a good amount of screen time dedicated to exploring his relationship with his father and his newfound powers. One thing we don't see in Justice League: Victor Stone's mother.

That wasn't always the case, though, Fisher told GameSpot.

"There were some things that you'll probably end up seeing later on, that didn't make it into this version of the film," Fisher said. "There's a scene with Victor Stone, when he still was Victor Stone, and his mother, that was really special to shoot."

He said Justice League feels like an origin story for Cyborg, despite being an ensemble film.

"It does feel like an origin, particularly to people who don't know as much about Cyborg," he said. "We pretty much know the history of the Flash...And then you've got Aquaman, who's half man, half Atlantean. I think those stories have been told for so long, it's kind of like just knowing Batman or Superman's origin, or Wonder Woman's origin."

Please enter your date of birth to view this video

That's probably true--introduced in 1980, Cyborg is the "youngest" member of the new Justice League. So why the cuts?

"You're shooting and testing, and when you're putting it together, you're seeing how cohesive you can make the story," Fisher said. "Ultimately this is a team story, and, while there is some Cyborg material that we don't see here, I'm just happy that my teammates get to shine as well."

"What is great about this film going forward is you'll be able to see him rebuild himself mentally the same way that his father rebuilt him physically," Fisher teased. "And it's a process that's going to take time."

One More Punch Line

Finally, while Justice League is easily the funniest DC movie yet, it could have been even funnier. Ezra Miller, who plays The Flash, shared one joke that didn't quite make it into the final film.

"There's a line that I miss from the film, that I wish was in there," Miller described. "[Aquaman] throws that thing against the wall in the Batcave, and [Batman's] original line was--I think now he just says, 'Hey. Don't do that.' But the original line was, 'Hey. Don't do that. A lot of my shit explodes.'"

Ezra and Momoa cracked up at this, and Momoa parroted the line after Miller said it. So why was it cut?

"Because, I think, that we only got a certain number of curse words," Miller explained.

All you need to do is watch an earlier Justice League trailer to know that there's much more that was cut. What about Superman's black suit, which actor Henry Cavill teased on his own Instagram in 2016? That and more didn't make it into Justice League.